None of the corporate buildings, apartments and hotels being built now seems like something we'll be proud of 20 years from now. Of course, that's assuming that those buildings even survive 20 years in a city that is characterized by destroying its architectural past. [...]

But maybe we citizens can influence the builders. We can tell them how ugly their buildings are. We can refuse to rent space in them.
— houstonchronicle.com

Boston needs bolder buildings, and it needs civic leaders who aren’t afraid to permit them. In what could mark a major turn for Boston’s architectural history, Mayor Marty Walsh signaled Wednesday that not everything needs to built in red brick. Unlike predecessor Tom Menino, he personally won’t be deciding what the tops of new buildings should look like. And, most striking of all, non-boring ideas are now welcome in the city.
— bostonglobe.com

Architects innovate through design, but developers also innovate by selecting architects and making decisions to invest in new neighborhoods or provide housing forms that they think other developers are neglecting. Although what developers do is not as obvious as architecture, that doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences to liming competition among them.
— forbes.com